Numerous racing events occur outdoors on paved race tracks throughout the year. These racing events take place in various open-air venues including, for example, oval or circular raceways, closed-circuit road courses, and drag strips to name a few. Generally, these racing events are scheduled for a particular day and are planned several months, if not years, in advance. Rescheduling or canceling a race scheduled for a particular day for any reason usually means a big disappointment for the race fans and racing teams as well as being costly to the race organizers.
One common reason to delay or cancel a scheduled race event is unfavorable weather conditions such as falling rain or standing rain water on the race surface. Because most race cars are designed to operate safely only on dry racing surfaces, any water on the racing surface creates a hazardous condition for both the drivers and the fans. Consequently, any water on the racing surface must be removed in a timely fashion for the racing event to safely take place on the scheduled date. Moreover, rapid removal of the water from the racing surface is critical when, for example, a race is stopped and delayed because of falling rain late during the race. If the water cannot be removed promptly after the rain ceases, the remainder of the race may have to be postponed to another day or canceled altogether.
Different techniques and machines have been used to remove water from racing surfaces all with varying degrees of success. One technique uses a train of vehicles such as pick-up trucks to parade around the race track to promote evaporation of the water. This technique is crude and costly, requiring numerous vehicles and operators and achieving only limited drying effectiveness.
In addition to the truck parade technique, various drying machines have been designed to dry racing surfaces. These drying machines can be either self-propelled units or adapted to be towed behind another vehicle. One drying machine may blow heated air alone onto the racing surface to promote evaporation. Another drying machine may use a rotating brush to sweep the water off the surface and into a collection tank. Still another drying machine may incorporate squeegees that direct the water to one side of the racing surface. While these drying machines do assist in the removal of water from the racing surface, their drying effectiveness is still insufficient to guarantee a quick restart of a race delayed by water on the racing surface.
It would be desirable, therefore, to have a surface drying machine which greatly shortens the time for removing water from a racing surface. This drying machine would be simple and inexpensive to operate, allowing a rain delayed race to continue shortly after the rain has stopped falling.